Book Review - The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch

I'm familiar with Dr. Ravitch; she's loosely grouped with others who write about the decline of education in our country. Assistant Secretary in the Dept. of Education under (the first) President Bush, she later accepted an appointment by President Clinton to the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which supervised national standardized testing. The NAGB approved potential reading passages for test questions, which then underwent the test contractors' "bias and sensitivity" review.

We all remember the stories about standardized test questions. Per "bias and sensitivity" review: Cake cannot appear in a comprehension story because it is not healthy; a story set in mountains discriminates against students who live in flatlands; it is wrong to describe peanuts as nutritious because they can cause severe allergic reactions. The list of stupidity goes on.

In addition to detailing a variety of well known testing companies' policies for standardized testing, this book also reveals how textbook publishers fall under the same unreasonable demands by feminists, ethnic minorities, the left, the right, religious groups, and the list goes on and on.

Background: textbook publishers pour millions of dollars into creating new books. Their eventual sales are dependent upon the approval of a few large states, such as Texas or California. If they are unable to sell in large numbers, they will also potentially lose the small sales. Publishers want to please their customers and therefore sanitize their books to avoid any possible potential objection.

Testing and textbooks must represent minorities in specific percentages. With original authors' permissions, popular stories were changed, for example: Judy Blume's Freddie in the Middle became Maggie in the Middle. Mrs. Jay was changed to Mrs. Chang. Although males and females were counted for equal balance, the state of Texas criticized a higher percentage of male animals. The state of California complained when The Little Engine That Could was depicted as male.

"Pioneer women doing domestic chores must be replaced by pioneer women chopping wood, using a plow, using firearms and handling large animals." (McGraw Hill) Women cannot be crying or doing "housework." Older people cannot be disabled or overweight. Men cannot be doctors or primary breadwinners. Children cannot be rude.

In short, test and textbook guidelines reach for a fictional world where there are equal numbers of males and females, where racial groups have participated equally in all aspects of history. History is not supposed to make us feel "good." How condescending that even student tests and textbooks are used to make a political point. "Literary quality becomes secondary to representational issues." "[The] ultimate goal of the academic curriculum is to advance multiculturalism." (Scott Foresman, which has 160+ pages of textbook guidelines.)

At the same time editors were simplifying reader vocabulary, which were found to be "too hard." ". . . standardized tests probe little more than basic skills. Depth, complexity and subtlety have been ruled out." I can well relate to this. As we began preparing for standardized testing when Trevor was in third grade, I saw that he was not doing well in "comprehension." I quickly realized that the testing wanted him to remember the color of John's dad's truck. Trevor had no idea--it was irrelevant to the story. But he could understand and easily explain WHY John liked to go riding with his dad. (Example.)

This was definitely a great read, very interesting, particularly the 25 pages of "banned words, usages, stereotypes, and topics." Wow. My personal subtitle would be something like "Reasons 224 - 592 to Homeschool." Note that the book was published in 2003, quite a while in terms of the school textbook industry, but probably not long enough ago to have made much difference in the books used today. On the downside, the book is poorly organized, with too much intermixing of testing and textbook requirements. Regardless, I recommend it as a definite eye opener, a fascinating book.